


"A Thing Done for the First Time"

by farad



Series: Epistles [4]
Category: The Magnificent Seven (TV)
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-07-08
Updated: 2013-07-08
Packaged: 2017-12-18 04:07:50
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,794
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/875446
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/farad/pseuds/farad
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>for the Daybook prompt "JD, he'd thought the worst he could ever feel was watching his mother die, but he'd found that he was wrong; set after "Lady Killers"</p>
            </blockquote>





	"A Thing Done for the First Time"

**Author's Note:**

> Un-betaed, all mistakes my own.

 

" _Whenever a thing is done for the first time, it releases a little demon._ "

-Emily Dickinson

 

 

_Dear Father O'Malley,_

 

_I know it's been a while since my last letter, and a lot has happened. First, though, here's money for prayers and candles for Ma. I've been lighting them here, and saying prayers, too, like you and Josiah told me, but I know she'd appreciate hearing them from you, too. She always did like to hear your masses._

 

_As I said, a lot has happened, Father, and I hope you don't mind me telling you and asking for your thoughts. I've talked to Josiah – Father Sanchez, though he doesn't like for me to call him that – and much as I like to talk to him, sometimes I don't understand what he's trying to tell me. You were a help to me after Mrs. Annie's death, and I have been saying my prayers for her and for myself, too. I feel more for her now, though, since I got shot myself and almost died._

 

_There's a long story behind it, too long for this letter, so I'm going to give you the short version, or as short as I can make it. Buck will tell you that it ain't possible for me to make a story short, and he's probably right, though I won't ever tell him that. It started with these two ladies, sisters, Maddie and Kate Stokes. When they first showed up in town, they said they were bounty hunters. I know it's hard to believe, but here, things are different. Women are different._

 

_I guess that's what I'm having the hardest time with, and why I want to talk to you. Most of my friends here are from here or have lived in this place so long that I guess that don't think about it. I tried to explain it to Buck, that some things about the way women are here just don't seem right, but he's – well, Buck's got his own ideas about women, and no matter what I say, he always thinks I'm too young to know what I'm talking about._

 

_The others, including Josiah, don't seem to understand what I mean either, though they do seem to think that what happened with Maddie and Kate Stokes was – well, it was just strange. Even for out here. I guess where it all starts is with Maddie dragging me off to the livery. I know how that sounds, and it is as bad as it sounds. Guess it's really worse, 'cause you know already that I've got a girl, Casey. But I can't tell you what happened, exactly, 'cause I don't really know. One minute I was trying to introduce myself to her and the next minute, she was pulling me across the street, talking about – well, I don't really know what she was talking about. All I know was that we were in the livery and she was – well, Father, she was doing things that I don't feel comfortable talking about, even this way, by letter. I can say that we didn't get our clothes off, I wasn't that sinful._

 

_And yes, I know it's a sin, and I have prayed about it as well. But I wonder if God punished me in other ways and maybe that's what I need your throughts on. Because Casey came in and found us, and then she ran out and wouldn't speak to me, not before I had to leave with Chris and Josiah and Buck to go follow Maddie and Kate Stokes. Maddie and Kate Stokes said they were tracking Del Spivak's gang, and the Judge sent us along because he was worried that if they found the gang, they'd get hurt._

 

_There's a lot to tell here, but as I said before, I'll try to make this short. It turns out that they weren't bounty hunters trying to bring in Del Spivak, but instead, Maddie was part of his gang and she and Kate were trying to find them to get Maddie's share of the money the gang had taken off a stage coach robbery where Maddie had shot a man, one of the Judge's oldest friends. I didn't know about that last part until much later, because Maddie shot me and almost killed me._

 

_And that's, I guess, another part of what I'm having trouble understanding. You and Ma and Josiah and all the sisters at school – everyone's always told me that some things should only happen between people who care about each other. I didn't hardly know Maddie, and I thought that she would want to get to know me before she let anything happen. But the more I tried to talk to her, the more she told me she didn't want to talk, that she didn't want to know that much about me. The next day, when we were riding with her and her sister, I tried to talk to her, to explain that I thought that what we had done was wrong, that I didn't mean anything by it (and I promise, Father, I have prayed about it, and done penance, because I know it was wrong for me to give into that temptation ). But she didn't seem to care at all that what we had done was wrong – and she didn't seem to care at all about me._

 

_I don't mean to say that I was in love with her. I didn't hardly know her. But I guess I felt kindly toward her, and I didn't want her to get hurt. I thought I was protecting her, saving her, when I came on her and Kate and Del Spivak in the clearing. I thought I was helping them to catch him._

 

_But Maddie shot me, as if I were the bad guy, as if I were the one holding the gun on her._

 

_I never got a chance to talk to her or to try to figure out what was in her head. While Nathan was trying to save my life (I lost a lot of blood, he says, and I was unconscious for days after he got the bullet out), Del Spivak shot and killed her. Buck shot Spivak, and Chris and Vin led a posse that caught up most of the others of the gang afterward, so there was some justice in the whole thing._

 

_But it turns out that Maddie was a killer. She killed the Judge's friend because he couldn't get his wedding ring off fast enough, and then she wore that ring on a chain around her neck._

 

_I don't understand. And maybe that's the part of this that is causing me problems. She didn't seem, to me, to be evil. I know this doesn't make sense – I can't explain it. But to me, in the short time we were together, she seemed sad. Scared and sad and like she wanted someone to take care of her._

 

_I don't know what to think. I mean that, too. Buck has told me how she was, what she did. Nathan and Josiah both said the same thing, though they said it a lot nicer and a lot more careful. Mostly, what they said was that she was crazy, insane. And they told me that what happened between us wasn't my fault._

 

_Casey, too, has forgiven me and I've told her how I feel about her, that I don't want any other woman but her. I guess getting shot was good for that, making me realize what I stood to lose if I didn't start thinking about it._

 

_And like I said at the first, it made me think about what I had done to Annie, which might be the biggest reason the Lord let it happen, so I would think more about what I do when I draw my guns._

 

_But I don't know how to feel about Maddie and what happened to her. I am very mad at her for it, which all of my friends, even Chris and Vin, say I should be. And I am angry at her for what happened between us at the livery, though I know that some of that was my fault. Maybe all of it. I should have, could have stopped it, if I had truly wanted to. Isn't that what we're taught?_

 

_Maybe if I had seen her during the time after she shot me, when the others found out about her killing the Judge's friend and her part of the stagecoach robbery, maybe then I could accept that she truly was insane, and maybe even really evil. Buck, Chris, and Vin have all told me that she was able to hurt people and that she threatened to kill the Judge and to kill them. Josiah, too, says that she was mad, but in the way that Josiah always talks, it's not the same as when Buck, Chris, and Vin say it. He says that she was learning, that by the time she died, she was coming to understand that other people have feelings too. He says she was learning to think about other people, not just herself._

 

_I hope so. I didn't see the mad woman that they did. To me, Maddie seemed scared and alone. I am angry with her still, and I guess Mrs. Annie is angry with me, wherever she is. I know her husband is, and he has every right to be. But I can't hate Maddie the way everyone seems to think I should. And I keep wondering how much of what happened was my fault._

 

_What do you think, Father? Am I wrong to be confused about her? Is it possible that she was bad, evil, that what I saw was a demon trying to convince me that it was good? Or am I doing penance for all the wrong I have done, and Maddie was a test that I failed?_

 

_If you deem it proper, with some of the money I've included, I'd like to buy some candles and prayers for Maddie as well. If she really is as mad as everyone thinks, then she'll need them._

 

_Thank you, Father, for taking the time to listen to me and to help. I know it's not your job anymore, now that I'm so far away, and I do have good people here who care about me and who I do talk to, like Josiah. But Ma always said you were the finest priest she ever knew and that no one knew the ways of God better than you did. I guess I still feel that way, too._

 

_I hope all is well with you and the sisters. You're all in my prayers, too._

 

_Yours in faith,_

 

_John Dunne_

 


End file.
